Excel Functions for Shark Week

It's Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, so here are a couple of handy Excel functions you can use in case of a shark attack. Of course, if you stay home and watch television, you should be safe. The infamous land shark rarely attacks.

That Shark is Large

Sharks are pretty big, with the shark types in this list ranging from 2 to 5 metres.

You're being attacked by the second longest shark. How long is it? To find out, you can use the LARGE function. It takes two arguments -- the array or range of numbers, and the position in that range.

In this example, the range is B2:B12, and the position is 2.

=LARGE(B2:B12,2)

If you type the position number in cell D1, you can refer to that cell in the LARGE function.

=LARGE(B2:B12,D1)

Sharks Eat Off the Floor

Yes, some sharks eat fish, and other snacks, that they find on the ocean floor. Unfortunately, a few sharks have also dined on people, including about 1000 in the USA, over the past 300 years.

From a list of shark attacks per state, you could use the FLOOR function to round down the average number of attacks, to a specific multiple. For example, you could round the average attacks (in cell E4) to a multiple of 10, with this formula:

=FLOOR(E4,10)

But if you're going to be attacked by a shark, you should make sure it happens in Georgia, where your odds of survival look pretty good.

Excel Tweet of the Day

Funny, there weren't any shark related Excel tweets, but this one made me laugh:

Dahlia and I will be working on baby's first spreadsheet today. Gotta learn Excel at some point.

For more entertaining and enlightening Excel tweets, culled from the hundreds posted every day, see Excel Theatre Blog.

You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

If you saw Jaws in the 70s, you probably don't need me to warn you -- don't go in the water! If you do go, take a really big boat.

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